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MP Yvette Cooper has joined local trade unions GMB and the NUM to demand that all the Kellingley workers get their final payout just as the Thoresby workers did.

MP Yvette Cooper has joined local trade unions GMB and the NUM to demand that all the Kellingley workers get their final payout just as the Thoresby workers did. Almost 300 former miners, staff and surface workers are currently being denied a final payment despite a court ruling that payments were owed and despite the fact that all the Thoresby workers received the payment when Thoresby closed at a similar time.

The Conservative Government has tried repeatedly to block final payments to the Kellingley workforce - including the last miners at Britain's last deep mine colliery. First they refused to give the workforce the same support as Thoresby, then they went to court to try to avoid paying out, and now they are trying to limit the number of people receiving a payment.

In August 2017 the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) won a tribunal against UK Coal Kellingley Ltd entitling the workforce to a final payment similar to that received by the Thoresby workforce because UK Coal failed to carry out proper consultation or explore alternatives to keep the pits open when they closed in 2015.

The court agreed that the workforce had not been consulted and that they should be entitled to an extra payment.

Now the government has backtracked and said that only the 409 men who were members of the NUM will receive payments despite the fact that the entire workforce were denied consultation and were wrongly treated when the pit closed (and despite the fact that all the Thoresby workforce were given payments regardless of which union they were in).

Now all the unions have come together to call for the whole workforce to get support.

Yvette is backing all the unions campaign for their members and is calling for a meeting with the Energy Minister to demand that everyone gets a payout.

Yvette Cooper MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford commented:

"Time and again this Conservative Government has tried to block support for Yorkshire miners. They gave the extra payments to the Thoresby workforce without a murmur, but they've resisted help for Kellingley every step of the way. I backed the NUM who rightly fought to get these payments in the first place and it's thanks to them that the first payments have been made. Now I'm backing the GMB rightly fighting to get the same payments to the rest of the workforce too.

Everyone knows that the consultation by UK Coal and the Government over the closure of Kellingley and Thoresby pits was a sham - and we also know they never properly looked at the investment options that could have kept Kellingley open for longer.

The Government failed to support the pit and now is failing the workforce - it's outrageous. That's why I'm demanding a meeting with the Energy Minister and campaigning with the unions to get the whole workforce the support they deserve.”

Most Recent News

Yvette & unions launch campaign for Kellingley workers as Government tries to deny hundreds of workers their final payout

MP Yvette Cooper has joined local trade unions GMB and the NUM to demand that all the Kellingley workers get their final payout just as the Thoresby workers did.

MP Yvette Cooper has joined local trade unions GMB and the NUM to demand that all the Kellingley workers get their final payout just as the Thoresby workers did. Almost 300 former miners, staff and surface workers are currently being denied a final payment despite a court ruling that payments were owed and despite the fact that all the Thoresby workers received the payment when Thoresby closed at a similar time.

The Conservative Government has tried repeatedly to block final payments to the Kellingley workforce - including the last miners at Britain's last deep mine colliery. First they refused to give the workforce the same support as Thoresby, then they went to court to try to avoid paying out, and now they are trying to limit the number of people receiving a payment.

In August 2017 the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) won a tribunal against UK Coal Kellingley Ltd entitling the workforce to a final payment similar to that received by the Thoresby workforce because UK Coal failed to carry out proper consultation or explore alternatives to keep the pits open when they closed in 2015.

The court agreed that the workforce had not been consulted and that they should be entitled to an extra payment.

Now the government has backtracked and said that only the 409 men who were members of the NUM will receive payments despite the fact that the entire workforce were denied consultation and were wrongly treated when the pit closed (and despite the fact that all the Thoresby workforce were given payments regardless of which union they were in).

Now all the unions have come together to call for the whole workforce to get support.

Yvette is backing all the unions campaign for their members and is calling for a meeting with the Energy Minister to demand that everyone gets a payout.

Yvette Cooper MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford commented:

"Time and again this Conservative Government has tried to block support for Yorkshire miners. They gave the extra payments to the Thoresby workforce without a murmur, but they've resisted help for Kellingley every step of the way. I backed the NUM who rightly fought to get these payments in the first place and it's thanks to them that the first payments have been made. Now I'm backing the GMB rightly fighting to get the same payments to the rest of the workforce too.

Everyone knows that the consultation by UK Coal and the Government over the closure of Kellingley and Thoresby pits was a sham - and we also know they never properly looked at the investment options that could have kept Kellingley open for longer.

The Government failed to support the pit and now is failing the workforce - it's outrageous. That's why I'm demanding a meeting with the Energy Minister and campaigning with the unions to get the whole workforce the support they deserve.”

Local News

Great relief at Harewood Centre Nursery School that all our campaigning to stop it closing this summer has paid off. The Government is cutting the budget for maintained nurseries like Harewood, but after all our pressure, parents petitions and campaigns, the Minister was forced to announce some extra money yesterday to fill the gap this year.

It’s a first step and the headteacher Becky Cook, staff and parents I spoke to at Harewood are really relieved. It would be a travesty if Harewood closed due to Governement cuts when it provides vital support for parents and families as well as the children. It’s why Cllr David Jones and I have been campaigning so hard and including getting Labour’s education team to visit Harewood and raise it in Parliament too.

But this is only the start. Now it’s time for Ministers to sort out a long term funding plan so that we don’t have to go through this all again later in the year.

Campaigning to stop Nursery closing this summer has paid off.

March 5, 2019

Great relief at Harewood Centre Nursery School that all our campaigning to stop it closing this summer has paid off. The Government is cutting the budget for maintained nurseries like Harewood, but after all our pressure, parents petitions and campaigns, the Minister was forced to announce some extra money yesterday to...

What a mess. The Prime Minister’s deal has lost support from all sides. For me a blindfold Brexit deal where we know so little about the future security and economic cooperation is too risky so I will vote against it. But whilst Theresa May’s deal doesn’t work, we cannot countenance no deal at all. For the sake of people across the country who no matter how they voted will be feeling let down by the chaos, it is time for Parliament, the Government and the EU to pause for breath and think again.

Keir Starmer has rightly said Labour MPs can’t sign up to anything if we don’t know where it is heading. The political declaration accompanying the Withdrawal Agreement on the long term relationship with the EU is just 7 pages long. If we leave with so little agreement on the future, our negotiating hand in those long term negotiations will be that much weaker too.

As Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, I am particularly concerned about the security consequences. Cross border crime and security threats are at their highest ever level. Yet whilst the political declaration includes reference to passenger name records and the Prüm fingerprints database it is ominously silent on two of the most important measures of all – the SIS2 criminal information database and getting a replica for the European Arrest Warrant.

We shouldn’t underestimate how serious this is. The SIS2 database is checked by our police, border force and immigration officials over half a billion times each year – looking for wanted criminals, terror suspects, child sex offenders or dangerous weapons. The head of the National Crime Agency has said, “If we cannot have access to these tools… There is a risk that this country is less safe as a result.”

There also isn’t a plan B. Unlike on Northern Ireland or customs there is no backstop for security in the Withdrawal Agreement. Most experts think a new Security Treaty will take years to agree and ratify, but if it isn’t completed before the end of the transition in December 2020 we have a serious capability gap.These measures save lives, stop criminals and stop terrorists. That’s why the Prime Minister of all people must know in her head and her heart that this downgrade of public safety is not in the national interest.

It was inevitable it would come to this. Theresa May’s strength is her resilience. Her weakness is her inability to consult or build consensus. She never sought Parliament’s agreement on the negotiating objectives. With no consultation she set up impossible redlines. No need even to mention the timing of Article 50 and the General Election. She hoped that if she talked tough on Europe but sought compromise she might be able to bounce something through – just as she had when she promised Eurosceptics in 2014 that she would opt out of many EU security cooperation measures only to opt straight back in again. Since then they haven’t trusted her, but nor has anyone else. Finally she hoped that by fudging the long term future deal she could persuade enough people to give her and the EU the benefit of the doubt. But there is no trust, and everyone fears the worst.

So what next? Let’s be clear, no deal is not an option and only the most reckless and dogmatic politicians would even propose it right now, even though the clock is ticking. An outcome which relies on stockpiling medicines, lines of portaloos along the M20 to support the tailbacks to Dover, and police warnings about public safety cannot possibly be a good deal for Britain.

Instead we should stop the clock. We need an extension of Article 50 so there is time to rethink and change course. The Prime Minister should start that process now. However much she wants to defend her own deal, she needs to recognise the scale of opposition and the risks to the country if shedoes not think again. It is impossible to predict at the moment what will happen within the Conservative Party or whether we will get the General Election Labour is calling for. But whatever happens we need more time, and the EU should recognise that it isn’t in their interests to end up with a chaos or a “No Deal” Brexit. Whatever outcome people want from all this, it’s in everyone’s interests to pause and take a deep breath. This mess isn’t helping anyone and it certainly isn’t in the national interest.

Why I Can’t Support the Prime Minister’s Brexit Deal

November 17, 2018

What a mess. The Prime Minister’s deal has lost support from all sides. For me a blindfold Brexit deal where we know so little about the future security and economic cooperation is too risky so I will vote against it. But whilst Theresa May’s deal doesn’t work, we cannot countenance...